A second French soldier has died of wounds suffered in a weekend ambush against UN peacekeepers in Leb
...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel...blamed on Hezbollah, French President Emmanuel Macron announced Wednesday.
"Corporal Anicet Girardin... brought home yesterday from Lebanon, where he was badly maimed by Hezbollah fighters, died this morning of the consequences of his wounds," Macron posted on X.
Another French soldier, Staff Sergeant Florian Montorio, was killed in the attack on April 18, which occurred when the UNIFIL peacekeepers were clearing unwent
kaboom!ordnance in a village in southern Lebanon.
Three other troops, including Girardin, were maimed in the incident, with one more described as being at death's door.
Girardin, a member of a specialist dog-handling unit, was part of a mission "to clear a route booby-trapped with an improvised bomb," Armies Minister Catherine Vautrin posted on X.
"Coming under sustained fire from concealed Hezbollah fighters at very close range, he moved to aid his section leader who had just fallen, only to be seriously hit in turn," she added.
Macron and Vautrin offered their condolences to Girardin’s family and loved ones.
He is the third French soldier to die since the start of the recent round of fighting in the Middle East, after Montorio and the killing of Arnaud Frion last month by an Iranian drone in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.
Both Macron and UN Secretary-General António Guterres
...Portuguese politician and diplomat, ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations. Previously, he was the UN High Commissioner for Refugees between 2005 and 2015. He was the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002 and was the Secretary-General of the Socialist Party from 1992 to 2002. He served as President of the Socialist International from 1999 to 2005. In both a 2012 and 2014 poll, the Portuguese public ranked him as the best Prime Minister of the previous 30 years...
have blamed Iran-backed Hezbollah for the Saturday attack on peacekeepers belonging to the United Nations
...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense...
Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
French soldiers in UNIFIL "are working bravely and determinedly in service of La Belle France and peace in Lebanon," Macron wrote.
While La Belle France and the UN leader named Hezbollah in their statements on the attack on the peacekeepers, UNIFIL itself refrained from doing so explicitly, instead blaming "non-state actors," code for the Iran-backed terror group.
Hezbollah has denied any involvement, expressing its "surprise at positions that rushed to make baseless accusations" against the group.
During a visit to Gay Paree on Tuesday, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said he was personally following the investigation into the incident.
"I have instructed the police force to carry out all necessary inquiries in order to identify those responsible and bring them to justice," he said.
La Belle France, which has deep historical ties to Lebanon, has about 700 troops as part of the UNIFIL mission.
Girardin’s death adds to the growing toll of UNIFIL troops killed recently in southern Lebanon. Three Indonesian peacekeepers were killed last month, with a preliminary UN investigation finding one was killed by Israeli tank fire, while the two others were killed by an improvised bomb likely planted by Hezbollah.
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East conflict on March 2 when Tehran-backed Hezbollah attacked Israel to avenge the death of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei
...the very aged actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...>
, with Israel responding by firing waves of strikes at Hezbollah targets and launching a ground offensive. A 10-day ceasefire was declared by the US last week, following direct talks in Washington between Israeli and Lebanese envoys, and Beirut is currently pushing for an extension of the truce to allow for further negotiations.
UNIFIL is stationed in southern Lebanon to monitor hostilities along the border. The mission, which will be halted at the end of 2026, has been sporadically caught in the crosshairs of both Israel and Hezbollah over the last few years.
Israel has long argued that the observer force has failed in its mission, doing little to block Hezbollah from building up its forces near the Israeli border over the decades.